Seeing, Hearing and Smelling the World
Cape Town, 12 April 2009 – by Bianca Gubalke
Howard Hughes - Aviator, Industrialist, Tycoon
Serendipity or Coincidence?
Very recently, while already working on my brand-new Online Newspaper “Touch Vision Talk“, I watched the acclaimed and award-winning film “Aviator” directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio in the leading role of the eccentric visionary Howard Hughes – aviator-industrialist, film producer and director, philanthropist, and one of the wealthiest people in the world despite suffering from mental illness and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Little did I know that only days later I would stumble upon highly interesting scientific research material on my main topic – the fascinating world of “the Senses” – by the Medical Institute the tycoon founded half a century ago, in 1953 to be exact.
Seeing, Hearing and Smelling the World – a real Miracle
Nerve cell in a rabbit's visual system
It’s natural, it’s simple, we take it for granted: our senses. Everything we absorb in one or another way comes to us through our senses: Vision, Taste, Touch, Smell and Hearing… although today’s scientists agree on several additional kinds of sensations, eg. pain, pressure, temperature, joint position,
muscle sense and movement, although these count normally under “touch” (“somatosensory” ).
It’s only when we suddenly lose them or have some kind of an illness that we suddenly realize how important, how life-depending… but also how very complex these processes are that still puzzle researchers and scientists today.
The fact is that to see an object or hear sound requires hundreds of millions of cells to operate – or even ot cooperate – in exact coordinated ways to firstly receive the sights or sounds… then translate them into electrical impulses… which then move through the nervous system transporting the messages to the brain… where they can be ‘decoded’ and acted upon – and this almost instantly.
The way our senses communicate with the world around us seems without any apparent effort, enabling us to distinguish hundreds of colors and maybe 10,000 smells. Our brain reacts to a precise range of wavelenghts and vibrations differing from that of other living beings: for instance we don’t see ultraviolet waves while bees can; we cannot detect infrared light, though rattlesnakes can.
Nothing attracts more than Change!
What has a decisive impact - and we see it in the evolution of Media Communication as a result – is our Awareness as to change within our environment, for anything that’s new, changes position, stands out (from the background), or that attracts our Attention – because it Alerts us to either danger… or opportunity!
So, any form of Communication is received through our senses and transformed through the brain – finding expression through sensations, movements, and thoughts.
In the beginning there are the senses. . . that’s what fascinates me, that’s where I start.
To be continued…
Bianca Gubalke
.
No related posts.
